Post
by onering » 3 years ago
Pokken, reread my arguments on Leovold. I started off on the fence but leaning to him needing a ban, then went to actively wanting him banned. I did, in fact, argue in my very first sentence on the topic that he met the same criteria as Braids, which is indeed what he eventually got banned for. I noted that it was possible to build him fairly, but way too easy to break him, and that the manner in which he gets broken is particularly problematic for the format (a quick, consistent, soft lock). My next post, wherein I moved to calling for his banning, I noted that half of the decks I saw with him (over the wide variety of power levels I encounter online) were the most problematic builds, with somewhat problematic builds making up a significant percentage of the other half and the fair builds being in the minority (and going further to not his problematic nature popping up in the 99 in Ydris).
This contrasts pretty significantly with what I've seen from Thrasios. Thrasios IS a highly played commander, but outside of the higher power levels I see fair builds a lot more often than broken builds. What he does is not as inherently broken as what Leovold did, so even taking advantage of his ability with cost reducers or more limited untap effects isn't an automatic game breaker. One wheel was all it took to make a game with Leovold turn to crap. It wasn't just the power level, even if someone top decked a STP and the Leovold player ended up losing, the game still sucked. Thrasios getting activated a few times is strong, but not anywhere close to game breaking. The bottom line is that where Thrasios is most ubiquitous, and most abused, the most abusive things he does are no worse than everything else that's happening at that level. He gets so widely played because 1) his partner ability lets you play 4 color, and he covers the two best colors already, 2) He provides a strong backup plan for combo decks by having strong synergies with cards that are already good at a high level of play, and 3) his worst case scenario is a solid mana dump, and he's cheap enough and non threatening enough on his own in that environment that he tends to be around if you have to end up relying on that. Banning him would make the high power level decks that utilize him weaker, true, but that's only going to be significant in cEDH and high powered casual. The problem with that is that the decks themselves aren't going to go away, they'll just find another commander, because their primary strategy is still the best thing going. The second, and probably more important, problem is that cEDH and the highest power levels of casual subvert the basic idea of the format, which is to not break it. Whatever the boogeyman is at the moment, there's always another waiting in the wings. cEDH will always be broken, and the most high powered end of casual will always be broken. They will always coalesce around the best strategies and the best commanders for those strategies. What Thrasios is doing is, for those formats, is pretty tame by the standards of those formats. I mean, you admit that the reason Thrasios sticks so often there is because you need to save your removal for bigger problems. That right there is proof that Thrasios really isn't the problem, because a card that always sticks around because it isn't worth aiming removal at is never the problem. The problem, the cause behind the lack of deck diversity at the highest levels and the degenerate nature of the decks there, is the style of play itself. All banning Thrasios will do for cEDH and top power casual is somewhat increase deck diversity there. 75% and below is already not negatively impacted by Thrasios when it comes to deck diversity, so banning Thrasios won't do much outside of the top tiers.
Note that half of the Thrasios decks on EDH rec are Thrasios+Tymna competitive and high power casual builds. He's definitely over represented in those meta games, but not throughout the format. Nothing should ever be banned with the intent to bring balance to cEDH or top power casual, because nothing will ever bring balance to those sub formats. Flash getting banned directly addressed the negative play caused by flash in those sub formats, so Thrasios needs to be judged on that rather than his impact on balance, and I don't see what Thrasios does as being problematic at those power levels, at least not in comparison to everything else that happens there.
To engage on the red flags:
1. Extreme consistency - 5-6 out of 10. Remember, the key word here is extreme. I don't think he hits that level. He does need support cards to really go nuts, and even when he gets those its not an auto win. He is, however, consistent, simply by virtue of being 2 mana. and his ability being universally useful as a fallback option. I'd say he's highly consistent when it comes to doing what's on the box, which isn't a problem, and moderately consistent when it comes to doing broken stuff. Moderate consistency on the later earns a 5 or a 6, and I'll bump it to 6 for having his baseline be very consistent and still good.
2. Ubiquity - 7/10. Agreed with you here, with the massive caveat that his ubiquity varies strongly depending on power level. He's probably a 10/10 in cEDH and top power casual, maybe 5-6/10 in 75% but less problematic, and decreasing from there.
3. Restricting others' opportunities - 0/10, Agreed, it doesn't at all.
Low level
1. Resource imbalances - 4/10 there. He's a slightly inefficient mana sink. Coming down early helps, and being always available and easy to recast helps, and his ability isn't terribly inefficient. Those factors are the only reasons he actually gets above 2/10.
2. Win out of nowhere - 6/10. He is a cheap combo piece, but only by the loosest definition. He's a mana sink for infinite mana combos, and he has some strong synergies otherwise. You still need to draw the two card combo to sink mana into him for him to win on the spot, and the things he "combos" with aren't that cheap (wilderness is 4, Seedborn is 5) and don't win on the spot (they put you in a very good position that will be very difficult to overcome in a powerful deck and will win fairly quickly, but that's still not on the spot so there's still more of an opportunity). Still, being cheap and good without comboing makes me rate him 6/10. To get over that he'd need to be in "I played my commander and one other card, gg" or "I played my commander and one other card, enjoy the lock" territory, which he isn't. 6/10 though is the highest rating I'd give for anything below that, so he's still moderately problematic here.
3. Prevent players from contributing - 0/10
4. Cause others to play certain cards - 0/10, because you conveniently cut the second part of that sentence. The red flag (or criteria, whichever we call it) goes on to state that those cards are themselves problematic. Thrasios does promote playing certain cards to answer him, but there are several caveats here that render this a 0/10. First, those cards are not problematic themselves. They are fair hate pieces. While they shut off a few commanders, that's not a problem. They generally don't ruin games of commander, so that they see an increase in play is not a problem. Second, Thrasios is not alone in promoting these cards. You rightly acknowledge Kenrith, Sisay, and Golos as also contributing to this, but there are lots of popular commanders with activated abilities. To really check off this box, a card must be encouraging cards to be ran to counter it mostly on its own, or in conjunction with maybe one or two other cards. What we have here is a whole class of commanders, ranging from broken like Golos to completely fair like Samut, that are encouraging people to run these cards as answers. Lastly, there are actually numerous answers to Thrasios, ranging from spot removal to these more targeted and permanent cards, so you don't actually have to include Linvala to answer Thrasios. Its only at the highest power levels that spot removal becomes an insufficient answer, primarily because spot removal is better spent on bigger threats. Combined, these factors render a 0/10 on this criteria. The highest I could see is 2/10, and that's being generous and based solely on the fact that it does actually promote running certain cards that were previously underplayed.
5. Very difficult to interact with - I'd go with 5/10, but again varying widely based on the meta's power level. In less than 75% I'd say 3/10. It will eat removal and get swept up by sweepers, and a few activations won't be a problem anyway, so he's right into dies to doom blade territory. For 75%, I'd say 4/10. You're more likely to be able to get a decent number of activations out of him if he isn't answered quickly there, so the pressure is on and taking him out as collateral damage in a sweeper is less effective. Higher power levels he's 7-8/10, for the reasons you mention. The window is more narrow to deal with him before he takes over a game due to a combo or strong synergy, and when he's just doing his thing without that you need to save spot removal for combos so its not an effective option. Another thing to keep in mind is that while his low cost means he can easily be cast a second time and reasonably cast a third time if need be, removing Thrasios is always bad for the Thrasios player in a vacuum. The result is always that Thrasios has left the board and now they need to spend more mana to land a 1/3. It doesn't undo his activations, but at 4 mana those activations aren't guaranteed every time you cast him unless you have enough mana to spare, and even then one activation is a relatively small amount of advantage. Compare this to Golos or Wanderer, two commanders provide immediate value from being cast or entering the battlefield. Removing them may be necessary, but the caster will always get something out of having played them (unless Golos is countered) and will stand to gain more the next time the cast them. Things like that which make removal less effective as an answer by mitigating the loss for the controller are not applicable to Thrasios.
6. Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or specific rules of commander - 0/10. Partner as a whole has some minor issues, universal partner especially, but it doesn't interact poorly with the rules of the format. The main issue is that it lets you hit four colors in your deck yet still be able to cast a commander if you don't have all your colors, and to play cheap cmc commanders. Of course, putting WUBRG activated abilities on a commander also accomplishes this
So the highest I see Thrasios getting, when looking at the format as a whole, is 6/10, which he gets on a couple criteria. He's moderately problematic on a few things and not problematic on most. Probably 5/10 overall. Once you narrow the scope to top power casual and cEDH, he rises higher in several categories and is probably a 7/10 there, perhaps an 8/10. Those types of metas are not representative of the format as a whole, and also prone to being broken, so a card that is only problematic there should not be banned unless it is so atrociously problematic there that it is killing those metas, like Flash was, and while I accept the Flash ban I think it should be the floor for what a card getting banned for cEDH considerations should be (that is, unless its at least as much of a problem as Flash was, it shouldn't be banned just to cater to the highest powered variants of the format).
But despite all this, I'm not going to place myself in some sort of never ban Thrasios camp. I'm only taking the position that, as of this moment and his current impact on the format, Thrasios should not be banned. He could very well become more problematic as time goes on. He could start show up in greater and greater numbers in casual games below the highest power levels, and the more problematic things he does could start showing up more often in the decks that run him at 75% and below power levels. Wizards could also continue to print enablers like Wilderness Rec that increase the likelihood of drawing into his strongest interactions by increasing the number of cards that interact strongly with him, and if all this comes to pass he could one day have a strong enough negative impact on a broad enough range of the format to warrant a ban. He's not there yet though, and he isn't really even close.